Episode 48. Interview with Maria Hupfield

Episode description

Broken Boxes Podcast is proud to present this episode as the fifth installation in a series of interviews featuring artists and their respondents from the socially engaged project #callresponse.

In this episode, Maria Hupfield speaks about her experiences living as an artist in New York, the influence her upbringing has had on her lifestyle, and shares reflections on where she finds inspiration to fuel her creative process. Maria speaks about her recent project It Is Never Just About Sustenance or Pleasure as part of SITElines, which is the second installment in SITE Santa Fe’s biennial series, opening July 16, 2016. Maria also reflects on the #callresponse project and shares more about her role as a participating artist and as one of the three initial project organizers.

Maria Hupfield. It Is Never Just About Sustenance or Pleasure, video installation video still 2016 Photo: Julie Nymann

"In live performance I insert myself into new conversations, activate space, and locate the body in relationship to self, collaborators, objects and place. My hand-sewn creations function as tools; jingles track body rhythms and modified industrial felt items are both shield and screen. These sculptures are carried on the body, recall everyday contemporary life and reflect upon sight, and sound, using the unexpected to shift meaning." - Maria Hupfield

Maria Hupfield is a member of Wasauksing First Nation, Ontario, currently based in Brooklyn NY. A featured international artist with SITE Santa Fe 2016, she received national recognition in the USA from the prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation for her hand-sewn industrial felt sculptures. Hupfield was awarded a long term Canada Council for The Arts Grant to make work in New York with her nine-foot birchbark canoe made of industrial felt assembled and performed in Venice, Italy for the premiere of Jiimaan, coinciding with the Venice Biennale 2015. Recent projects include free play Trestle Gallery Brooklyn with Jason Lujan, and Chez BKLYN an exhibition highlighting the fluidity of individual and group dynamics of collective art practices; conceived by artists in Brooklyn and relayed at Galerie SE Konst, Sweden. She was a guest speaker for the Distinguished Visiting Artist Program, University of British Columbia, Indigenous Feminist Activism & Performance event at Yale, Native American Cultural Center and Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies, and the Indigenous Rights/Indigenous Oppression, Symposium with Tanya Tagaq at the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, MD. Like her mother and settler accomplice father before her Hupfield is an advocate of native community arts and activism. The founder of 7th Generation Image Makers, Native Child and Family Services of Toronto, a native youth arts and mural outreach program in downtown Toronto she is Co-owner of the blog Native Art Department International. Hupfield is represented by Galerie Hugues Charbonneau in Montreal.

Presented in conjunction with #callresponse Maria's second iteration of Post Performance / Conversation Action, with Special Guest Alanis Obomsawin, at L'UQAM Galery MontrealJune 5th, 2016 is presented by OFFTA as part of Indigenous Contemporary Scene (ICS), a programming produced by ONISHKA. http://offta.com/en/2016-edition/program/ Photo credit: Henry Chan

#callresponse project details:

Strategically centering Indigenous women as vital presences across multiple platforms, #callresponse is a multifaceted project which includes a website, social media platform, touring exhibition and catalogue. The project brings together five local art commissions by Indigenous women artists from across Canada, including Christi Belcourt, Maria Hupfield, Ursula Johnson, Tania Willard and Laakkuluk Williamson-Bathory. Each artist has invited a guest to respond to their work, including Isaac Murdoch, IV Castellanos and Esther Neff, Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Marcia Crosby and Tanya Tagaq.

In this episode we speak with Queer artist/curator/writer/lecturer bart fitzgerald. The work of fitzgerald seeks to situate Trap Music within conversations around the longstanding tradition of sound in the black radical …

In this episode we get into conversation with Ryan Dennison, a Diné transdisciplinary artist from Tohatchi, NM. Ryan speaks about his family and community as crucial support systems to maintaining his artistic practice. …

Broken Boxes had the honor to be present for the opening of The Art Of Indigenous Resistance exhibition, which took place on March 13th 2017 at Self Help Graphics and Art in Los Angeles, CA. The opening featured artwork …

In this episode we get into conversation with queer Asian-American artist, filmmaker and poet JESS X SNOW. She speaks on her migration story and how imposed borders have shaped her art and perspective on place. She …

Broken Boxes Podcast is proud to present the final episode in a series of interviews featuring participants and their respondents from the socially engaged project #callresponse. This episode was recorded live at grunt …

Broken Boxes Podcast is proud to present this episode featuring curator Tarah Hogue as the tenth installation in a series of interviews featuring participants and their respondents from the socially engaged project …

Broken Boxes Podcast is proud to present this episode featuring Christi Belcourt and Isaac Murdoch as the 9th installation in a series of interviews featuring participants and their respondents from the socially engaged …

What is happening right now at Standing Rock is a crucial historical moment regarding frontline resistance by aboriginal peoples and their allies against extractive industry; these are people who have come to protect …

Broken Boxes Podcast is proud to present this episode featuring Esther Neff & IV Castellanos, respondent Artists for Maria Hupfield, as the sixth installation in a series of interviews featuring participants and …

Māori artist and photorgrapher Te Rawhitiroa Bosch evokes the magic and intensity of the human experience with his work. In this podcast Te Rawhitiroa shares how he has come to his unique and empowering photographic …

Demian DinéYazhi’ is a Portland-based transdisciplinary warrior born to the clans Tódích'íí'nii (Bitter Water) and Naasht'ézhí Tábąąhá (Zuni Clan Water's Edge) of the Diné (Navajo). Whether he is broaching topics …

"As young people, we realize that we can’t continue on like this. We need clean air, water, and a viable lifeway for our people. In facing this crisis of our future, the idea of walking to raise awareness was born."
…

Chris Pappan is a Chicago based artist of Kaw, Osage, Cheyenne River Sioux heritage, and a self described Native American Lowbrow artist. Currently his artwork is based on American Indian ledger drawings of the mid to …

In the heart of Oakland, California, Monica Canilao spends her days stitching, painting, printing, and breathing life into the refuse that dominates our time and place. Moving across media, sometimes with friends and …

"One of the main reasons why I make art is because I seek to create new perspectives and ways of looking at the world. My work is predominantly centered on my various identities—queer, Japanese, Hapa, environmentalist, …

"The need for education and knowledge is the greatest social achievement…and is one way to uplift and empower the people back to their feet. To shed truth and light about the way worlds work and why we can and have the …